Getting the Nitty-gritty on the Produce You Purchase

To get the best and most accurate information about anything, it’s always best to go directly to the source. And when it comes to gathering information about your fruit and vegetable purchases, that “source” has always been your grocery store’s produce manager. That store employee has always been the point man (or woman) when it comes to questions about nutrition, recipes, freshness and origins of your produce. In the changing landscape of produce departments and store formats, these experts aren’t always available and may not have all the information a consumer is looking for.

When it comes to getting good information about the food you’re purchasing for your family, another valuable source is the actual supplier of that produce. In other words… the grower. In an age where people want to know more about their food at point of sale and in their kitchen, technology is allowing consumers access to the producers of their food more directly.

Here at Green Giant® Fresh, we’re working hand in hand with TRUETRAC, a software company with its roots in agriculture, to bring you at-your-fingertips information about the produce you’re purchasing from us. TRUETRAC has developed a web-based system to trace produce from the fields to the market, as well as ensure food safety and sustainability. In particular, we’re working together on something called item-level traceability, which allows us to help you trace your food at the item level.

Green Giant Fresh has always had industry-leading quality control processes that are applied across our organization to ensure the fruits and vegetables that we grow and sell are fresh, wholesome, nourishing and safe to eat. These processes — growing, harvesting and shipping — are complex issues, which makes Green Giant Fresh the perfect candidate for the development of a traceability system.

Our recent decision to deliver our first commercialized consumer mobile marketing product – using TRUETRAC’s ItemTracsoftware – further signals our commitment to food safety and traceability while supporting our customer’s need for real-time information about us and our products as they hold them in their hands!

As you can see in the image above, in the initial Sweet Baby Broccoli product offering that Green Giant Fresh is collaborating on with TRUETRAC, shoppers will have the ability to scan barcodes on consumer packages of produce by using their smartphone or other web-enabled device. That quickie scan instantly provides the shopper at the market with information about the grower, the product, and even where the produce originated — down to the specific field where the produce was grown.

For growers like us, it’s an opportunity to communicate directly with the consumer about our fruits and vegetables — we’re bringing our farms and expertise about our produce right to you, virtually. We’ve seen the future and the future tells us that consumers expect and demand instant access to information. We expect that ItemTrac will provide this information, in combination with the enewsletters, email marketing and other communications tools at our disposal.

More information about the Green Giant Fresh ItemTrac pilot project will be available in the weeks to come.